Load IQ Tests Energy Management Technology at Siemens’ Facility in Nuremburg
The Utility Accountant is an energy management system—installed at the utility box—that reads information about electrical and natural gas usage and disaggregates the loads to determine the energy draw by each appliance. This itemized data is delivered to the business owner through a Web-Based dashboard. By reviewing the data, the business owner can identify and improve inefficiencies in energy usage for each appliance or piece of equipment.
It was last June that Kuhns, CEO of Load IQ, was referred by NIREC to the Technology-to-Business (TTB) New Ventures Forum. From 50 applicants, Load IQ was one of only seven companies selected from 50 applicant companies, that was invited to the forum. The three-day forum, hosted by Siemens—a global powerhouse in electronics and electrical engineering―is designed to teach small businesses how to provide value to a large strategic partner.
At the forum, Siemens TTB venture technologist Dr. Ayman Fawaz was introduced to the Utility Accountant. After the forum, Kuhns was invited to Nuremburg to evaluate the Utility Accountant at a Siemens test facility. The Utility Account’s performance was impressive—it was able to detect major appliances and isolate the top energy loads within three percent of Siemens’ independent measurement.
These results led Siemens to pose a real scenario to Load IQ. How will the Utility Accountant work in an industrial manufacturing operation using millions of dollars in electricity yearly?
“The first step is to determine what equipment is consuming how much electricity. This can be an expensive proposition if you have to install one measuring device per equipment. The Utility Accountant significantly simplifies answering the question at hand,” said Dr. Fawaz. “This technology has a considerable potential and it is our job at TTB to figure how it might fit into Siemens’ one hundred billion dollar ecosystem.”
Kuhns is busy at work on a proposal response. “We are very excited about the potential of our partnership with Siemens,” he said.
While Kuhns is optimistic about the product’s move into the industrial manufacturing market, he knows that he must strive for success in multiple markets. Through work with NIREC, Load IQ has determined a niche market that can readily gain from using the Utility Accountant: owners of multiple fast food franchises. “We’ve moved to a niche where there is a stronger financial pull for the owner,” said Kuhns.
The Utility Accounts’ dashboard capabilities allow these owners to compare equipment and energy usage from multiple similar business locations. Through this data, they can locate equipment that is running inefficiently and make repairs or replacements, and they can identify when one operation has a more efficient method for running the equipment and share improvement methods across the enterprise. “Improving efficiencies in these operations directly affects the bottom line—where one dollar in savings is equivalent to twenty dollars earned,” said Hampden.
Other market possibilities also exist. Last month, Load IQ was one of 20 semifinalists in the Cleantech Open, the largest clean technology business competition in the world, according to its website. During the competition, representatives from Sony showed interest in the product and a Bay Area firm has expressed interested in investing. The timing is right, as Kuhns plans to start active fundraising in the first quarter of 2012.
